An Open Letter to All Who Seek A New and Better World – Published on ZNet, by IOPS Supporters, July 26, 2012.

We are members of what is called the the Interim Consultative Committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society – or IOPS for short.

IOPS is actually an interim entity, pending a future founding convention. IOPS was convened just a few months ago and already has over 2,100 members from 85 countries and a ten language site, despite that it is barely known publicly. IOPS is currently building local chapters, which will unite to form national branches that in turn will compose an international organization. Read the rest of this entry »

Government investment, rather than privatisation or international aid, offers the best solution for water services in Ghana. Seventy percent of Ghanaian homes don’t have a WC or a pit latrine. Piped water, if you have it at all, is intermittent, so water in your tap depends on whether you can afford a domestic reservoir. In 2005, the World Bank secured a private sector solution to the water crisis in Ghana – the first independent sub-Saharan African country, and one of the first to be economically adjusted for corporate benefit. But Ghanaian campaigners had different ideas for their taps and toilets. Read the rest of this entry »

… in the Price-Fixing Scandal That’s Rocking the World: Grandma’s finances will almost certainly never recover from the LIBOR scandal. And, needless to say, she never asked for it – Published on AlterNet, by Alexander Arapoglou , Jerri-Lynn Scofield, July 26, 2012.

Every business day at 11am, London time, something critical to the world economy happens. Leading “reference banks” are asked what they believe borrowing rates to be. Based on what they say, LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) is set for that day. Those rates then flow through to the broader economy. They determine how trillions of dollars of loans, mortgages and derivatives are priced … //Read the rest of this entry »

Many new programmes are trying to stem the tide. Community rangers in the Kimberley are now being trained in suicide intervention as part of a rapid response team.

The Balunu Foundation uses cultural traditions to help build the self-esteem of at-risk youths – by organising camps where aboriginal youths can reconnect back to their land and culture.

In the east Arnhem-land community of Ski Beach in the country’s north an unfunded group of elderly women run a suicide night watch to prevent at-risk youths from harming themselves.

Dr Pat Dudgeon, Australia’s leading aboriginal mental health practitioner, is from the Kimberley region herself and she is starting Australia’s first National Suicide Prevention Strategy that targets aboriginals specifically …

Using data from the BIS, IMF, World Bank, and governments, former Chief Economist at McKinsey, James Henry, reports the 1% have deposited $21 trillion to $32 trillion in tax havens to evade taxes. Related, the Federal Reserve reports the US top seven banks have over $10 trillion in assets recorded in over 14,000 created “subsidiaries” to avoid taxes. Read the rest of this entry »

… Secret diplomacy is generally held nowadays in polite circles to be a poor idea, but seeing as Western Canadian provinces are not sovereign states – no matter the dreams of those fellows in their broken-down and bumper-stickered camo pickup trucks – it’s probably just a venial sin, diplomatically speaking … // Read the rest of this entry »

Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the counterrevolutionary forces headed by the United States embarked on damage control. A major strategy in pursuit of this objective has been to foment civil war and regime change in “unfriendly” places, and then portray them as part of the Arab Spring. Read the rest of this entry »

While the Western system, under the influence of the war lobbies, is based on financial parasitism and unbridled predation, Venezuela and Russia are building an alternative model. The multipolar world is one of balanced partnerships and win-win agreements. But as pointed out by Olivia Kroth, the Libyan tragedy should serve as a lesson: the emergence of an alternative to imperial capitalism must go hand in hand with a strong defense capability. Read the rest of this entry »

Experts are unsure which economic model Islamist President Mursi will follow, though it is unlikely to mark a radical shift from existing policies – Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Nesma Nowar, 19 – 25 July 2012.

Mohamed Mursi’s inauguration as Egypt’s first democratically elected president has raised many questions concerning the outlines of his administration. One of the pressing concerns is how an Islamist president is likely to run the country’s economy. Many economic challenges lay ahead, including modest growth rates, high rates of unemployment, poverty, rising inflation and a gaping budget deficit. Experts believe that the measures Mursi would take to address these challenges depend on the economic model he adopts. But what is this model? … // Read the rest of this entry »

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project/E-Bulletin No. 668, by François Laforge, July 19, 2012.

In the traditional speech to the National Assembly, France’s Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of the ruling Socialist Party laid out the political program he shares with the new President François Hollande. Hollande won France’s presidential election with a victory in a runoff vote in May over despised conservative ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy. In June parliamentary elections, the Socialist Party and other center-left groupings won a majority of seats, which put Ayrault in the prime minister’s office … //Read the rest of this entry »

… Identity politics is a daily dialogue amongst Egyptians, even if they do not name it with this name. The mottos of “Islam is the Solution” and “Quran is our Constitution” of the Islamist movements in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, is echoed in the public debates .The fierce fights for including Sharia’ in the constitution is a manifestation of the identity politics game, as they want to ensure and declare that Sharia is Egypt’s “fundamental and primary ” reference and they are abiding by the Islamic law. Read the rest of this entry »

the good, the bad and the ugly – Published on Pambazuka News, by Ahmed M.I. Egal, July 12, 2012.

The British-led process to replace the current illegitimate and intrinsically unrepresentative structure in Somalia with another equally illegitimate one is an affront to the best interests and rights of the Somali people … //

… This British-led effort in ‘nation-building’ in Somalia, aided and abetted by the vast UN and NGO relief and development nomenclature, is breathtaking in its sheer audacity of seeking to impose a ‘permanent government’ upon a country that has been utterly destroyed physically, economically and psychically, through a process that doesn’t even make a perfunctory nod at legitimacy by seeking the consent of the people to be governed. Read the rest of this entry »

An ideological poison is polluting all life within Ethiopia, flowing into every area of civil society. Local governance, urban and rural neighbourhoods, farming, education and the judiciary all are washed in Revolutionary Democracy, the doctrine of the ruling party. Human Rights Watch, (HRW) in their detailed report, “Development without Freedom” (DWF) quotes Ethiopia’s Prime Minister for the last twenty years, Meles Zenawi, explaining that: Read the rest of this entry »

On Bastille Day (14/07), French president says jobs are his top priority and dubs automaker Peugeot’s job cut unacceptable – Published on Al Jazeera, July 14, 2012.

Francois Hollande, the French president, has pledged on the country’s national day to fight industrial layoffs and clean up French politics. The French leader attended the Bastille Day celebrations on Saturday watching troops parade down the Champs Elysees in Paris as jets streamed the national colours overhead … // Read the rest of this entry »

… In creating this list, I sought to eschew the language and approaches of “population control,” or the idea that anyone should pressure women and their partner on reproduction. Instead, I hoped to highlight strategies that could put human population on an environmentally sustainable path: Read the rest of this entry »

Before Wisconsinites voted down the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker, and certainly since, principled progressives inside and outside of unions have disagreed on whether or not the campaign should have happened. In fact, between the two of us, we don’t fully agree about whether or not the recall was the correct tactic. Read the rest of this entry »

exemple: Keiser Report: Fraud & 60 Orgasms (E311), 25.46 min: uploaded by RussiaToday, July 7, 2012: In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss why nobody is freaking about LIBOR in America, while JP Morgan caught doing an Enron on US energy markets and GlaxoSmithKline pays 10% of their ill-gotten gains for bribing doctors and scientists across America. In the second half of the show Max talks to Kevin Sara of the TuNur solar export project of Tunisia about solar exports from the Middle East and toxic derivatives exports from the City of London…;

More facts are continually emerging demonstrating the links between the German domestic intelligence service (Office for the Protection of the Constitution—VS) and neo-Nazi terrorists. Yet under conditions where broad layers of the population fear the emergence of a new version of the Gestapo, the German Left Party is explicitly defending the secret service and calling for structural changes aimed at optimizing its activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Chariots of the Gods – FULL, 94.38 min, by Erich von Daniken: uploaded by lbawop, Feb. 18, 2012: This video is from the early 1970’s. I dont agree with everything that Erich von Daniken has to say, but even after 40 years most of this film is still unexplained … So i still think its worth watching, Enjoy, LBA; Read the rest of this entry »

Although a MB-SCAF confrontation is possible, a compromise between the onetime partners is more likely – Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Ziad Akl, 5 – 11 July 2012.

The Egyptian revolution in January 2011 was characterised by an absence of leadership. The millions who took to the streets had no organised leaders to speak in their name. The revolution youth coalition that was formed during the 18-day uprising represented different political forces with sometimes conflicting ideological backgrounds. As soon as the common goal – the removal of Hosni Mubarak – was achieved, a factionalised scene was inevitable. Read the rest of this entry »

From his book Of, By, For: The New Politics of Money, Debt and Democracy - Published on naked capitalism, by Joe Costello, July 4, 2012.

Looking at Western civilization starting around the time of the Ancient Greeks, there are only scattered and relatively short periods of self-government. There were the Greeks and Romans, but after the fall of the Roman republic in the 1st century BC, self-government would disappear from the West for well over a millennium, reappearing briefly in Italy during the Renaissance, in Amsterdam, Switzerland, and in fits and starts in England. Read the rest of this entry »

By Zarathustra, who is the founder of Hong Kong blog Also sprach Analyst. He was educated at the London School of Economics and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and was once a Hong Kong-based equity research analyst focusing on Hong Kong real estate (which he did not really like), with a secondary coverage on China real estate sector (which he actually hated). Cross posted from MacroBusiness … //Read the rest of this entry »